The Rio Grande Pueblo villages, and the Hopi villages of Az., are also all descended from Ancestral Puebloans. Each of the Hopi clans can trace their migrations back to various Ancestral Puebloan ruins. The Water clan lived at Wupatki in Az. Wupatki is a beautiful national monument. The Fire clan migrated to the Hopi mesas from Betatakin, another major ruin in northern Az. The Snake and Horn clans migrated from the area of Navajo Mountain. The Tewas themselves, the subject of the article, lived just east of the Hopi mesas. Many ancestral Hopi sites and shrines are located in Bears Ears National Monument in southern Utah. Old Orabi village in Hopiland, and Acoma, the Sky City in New Mexico, both date back to about 1000 AD, and are the oldest inhabited villages in the United States. So they were themselves established by Ancestral Puebloans, aka the Anasazi, as the Navajo called them. Migrations were the rule, not the exception, throughout the history of these peoples, and where they live today in Az and NM is where the Ancestral Puebloans settled centuries ago. I think it likely amuses the Rio Grande Pueblo, Acoma Pueblo, and Hopiland Pueblos that any of our archaeologists ever considered the Anasazi as having "vanished".

Thanks, rgs. I wish I knew more. I love the Southwest and the many ruins in spectacular settings.

I'll be simplistic here, and I am not an authority. Just someone who has always been strongly attracted to Anasazi sites and culture, on the one hand, and the Hopi people on the other hand. The Hopi believe this is the 4th world. There were three earlier worlds in their mythology. Three earlier ages. When the Hopi emerged into the 4th world, their creator god instructed them that they would undergo a long cycle of migrations before they settled in their eventual homeland. That homeland is the 3 mesas of Hopiland in northeastern Az. But, on emergence into this 4th world, the various clans separated and undertook migrations throughout the 4 corners region, establishing villages and living in then for periods of time, before their religious imperative compelled them to pull up stakes and resume their prescribed migration again. Eventually, all the clans arrived at their present location.

Archaeologists develop information on the Ancestral Puebloans, the Navajo word Anasazi being an earlier term for that culture, by studying actual ancient sites. And so they have apparently developed information tying the present day Tewas to ancient Mesa Verde sites. Anthropologists, on the other hand, develop information by studying actual living cultures. All the present day Puebloans are descendent from the Ancestral Puebloans, and, in talking to living informants, anthropologists learn that all the clans have oral traditions, histories, and myths that tie them to virtually all the well known Anasazi ruins in the Southwest.

Archaeologists have long puzzled over the mystery of why ruins were abandoned. What happened to the ancient Chacoans for instance? Why was Mesa Verde abandoned? Why were the cliff dwellings established at one point, in contrast to pueblos in the open? It's certainly a legitimate puzzle overall, with drought and enemies invoked. But, in reading the Hopi myths, for example, one learns of their own living explanations, having to do with following the instructions of their creator, upon their emergence into this 4th world. Archaeologists cannot really be expected to obtain that kind of info by studying ancient sites and artifacts. But, all along, the living descendents of the ancient ones studied by archaeologists have had an explanation for the abandonment of Anasazi sites. They were following a religious or spiritual imperative, instructed by the creator to wander the Southwest until finding their final home.

This is all very simplistic on my part, and based mostly on reading about the Hopi for many years. Obviously, the people of Acoma Pueblo, and the Rio Grande Puebloans did not end up on the Hopi mesas. But all have stories of the migrations, and all the clans have oral memories tying them to the many Anasazi ruins scattered throughout the 4 corners region of the United States. As well as the great site of Casas Grande in northern Mexico. The Anasazi civilization never actually vanished. They never "disappeared". I believe viewing the abandonment of cliff dwelling and pueblos throughout the region at various times created a false impression of "vanishing civilizations". I believe that has always been somewhat misleading. Because in talking to living informants, one finds that the present day tribes and clans have never forgotten their ties to places like Mesa Verde, and Wupatki, and Chaco Canyon, and on and on. These places were abandoned, but the people never disappeared. They survive to this day.

Here is a good book to learn about these ancient places through the eyes of their living descendants, rather then through the trowels of the archaeologists: